Earth Day brought this infamous quote to mind today. Do you remember the old Chiffon Margarine commercial famous for the one liner, “It’s not nice to fool with mother nature!”? Of course you do! The actress Dena Dietrich delivered her lines with such style they lasted longer than the commercial, or the margarine! A classic commercial, you can still hear the one liner spoken today, at least by our generation!

These are crazy times. It’s a pleasure to escape back in time for a moment and revisit simpler times. Old movies, classic music, and even commercials remind us of simpler times when our world seemed safer. Back then we weren’t afraid to eat Chiffon Margarine or drink out of a hose. Drug stores did not sit on every corner and we didn’t even consider that the food our parents served us might be harmful to us. Most of us grew up in a world in which a visit to church or synagogue was a part of week.

THE GIFT OF THE EARTH

Romping in the woods was a natural part of my life as a child, and Earth Daygives me an opportunity every year to reflect on the value of the natural world. For me, it’s not just about global warming and National Parks, although it is that, it’s about the restorative life energy nature gives to each of us when we seek it out. It’s the interior value of a walk in the woods, or watching a sunset or the waves as they crash on the shore. There’s nothing else like it.

I can easily imagine life without Chiffon Margarine, which had a long an interesting history. It seems those who created it first began selling it in 1954. A corn product out of Texas, it was the first soft tub margarine to come on the market. My family used it, did yours? I never liked the taste. Butter was infinitely better in all respects.

Chiffon Margarine sold to Kraft in 1985 which became a part of Nabisco in 1995, and then became a part of Con-Agra in 1998. Con-Agra stopped distributing Chiffon in the United States and Canada in 2002. It can still, however, be purchased in the Caribbean. (Wikipedia) So went the fate of Chiffon Margarine. We are healthier for its absence from our diet, that is, if we ignore the rise of fast food restaurants and snack foods!

THE GIFT OF SCIENCE

The events that gave rise to the Science Marchon Earth Daythis year have given us an opportunity to reflect on what really is good for us, as individuals and as a nation. Like the earth, we have taken so much for granted in our lifetime. We were so busy with our lives we lost sight of the bigger picture. It wasn’t that we weren’t doing our best and contributing to the betterment of our corner of the world, we just became a little too self-focused.

We’re a nation of individualists. That has its advantages. The disadvantage, however, is the tendency to believe that everyone else thinks like we do, and that everyone else’s life is like ours. Being self-focused may get things done day-to-day. It doesn’t mean things will continue as they are in the world unattended to. We became so accustomed to our government watching our backs about everything, from the quality of our food to the quality of our earth. We trusted them implicitly. There didn’t seem to be any reason not to. After all, the government managed to impeach Nixon when he crossed the line. They generally know what they’re doing. They will keep building National Parks, and maintaining our highways, and protecting the environment from big business.

The upside of the political nightmare is that we are now taking the time to revisit our values as a nation, to remember and restate exactly what it is we stand for. We had forgotten who we were. Complacency had taken up residence. So lost in the minutiae at election time, we stopped paying attention to whether or not the people we elected shared our deepest values. Furthermore, we assumed that we were all, more or less, on the same page, but without open dialogue and communication we can’t know this for sure.

POLITICS & MARRIAGE

Our political world is much like a marriage. Communication is foundational and without it, problems will and do arise. It is time for us to collectively restate our values, beliefs and goals as a nation. Only then can we unify, stand together and work together to keep this country great. It’s up to us. It’s not just up to our leaders. So I say march on scientists! March on women! I am thrilled you actively voice your values, not only to the listening ears of our leaders, but to the people who elect them. The majority of us are cheering you on and stand to benefit from your tireless efforts to make the world a better place.

The earth is a gift. Science is a gift.Freedom is a gift. Let’s never forget it, and let us continue be vigilant and stay informed. As we work together to get our already great nation back on track, know that we are becoming stronger than we were before.

Quotes & Inspiration for the Midlife Woman

The value of truth seems to have lost its influence.

The world keeps turning. I get up in the morning to the sun, and go to bed each night with the moon and the stars shining their light on my broken heart. The world is a “hot mess” as my young millennial friends would say.

Navigating life now is not an easy task! Walking the medial way, with one foot in the world and one foot in Spirit, isn’t easy to do under “normal” circumstances! Now, it feels impossible, and yet it is certainly an excellent opportunity to practice! I, like many I talk to, long for simpler times.

SPEAKING THE TRUTH AS I SEE IT

I woke up this morning feeling exactly like Alice in Wonderland. ART BY: David Hoffrichter

I keep choosing, every day, to speak the truth as I see it; to ask the questions, explore the answers, look for what lies beneath the surface of things. Even as I try to be kind about it, not attacking or name calling, my words seem to cause sparks to fly. People rant at me and call me names.

In the past week, I was called a bigot, a pseudo-intellectual, an irrational feminist, and a few other choices names I’d rather not repeat here. The nastiest, meanest comments came from men, who I previously believed were highly rational, intelligent, educated men. The comments I received from women were angry and upset, more aimed at the belief that I should be taking about the politics on an aging site, nor should I take sides. I weigh this question constantly.

“JUST GET ALONG!”

The most common concern I’ve heard from women has been, “don’t you think you should play nice and just accept what is happening?” To this I say, yes and no.

Nothing infuriates me more than the part of our culture that wants us to get on board with the status quo. What we are experiencing right now IS NOT NORMAL. It is not business as usual, and I won’t pretend it is. I protested in the 60’s and my values with regard to peace, love and acceptance remain the same. I’ve never been a fan of the establishment, but this is going too far!

NAME CALLING HURTS!

It hurts being attacked. Conflicting feelings rise to the surface, adrenaline pumps through my body and I’m suddenly in fight or flight mode. I want to lash out, and with my weapon of choice write an epistle explaining exactly how and why I am not what they say I am. When I realize that more conversation would be pointless, I sink into despair. What am I to do with all these feelings now?

ASK THE HARD QUESTIONS

I have no choice but to go inside myself and ask the hard question. Are they right? Do their labels fit?

Am I a pseudo-intellectual? I’ve never thought of my self as an intellectual, so that one was lost on me as a true reflection of myself. However, by asking the question I began to see the perpetrators projection. The particular label came from a man who, even at 16, took abundant pride in his intelligence. He believed his intellectual abilities made him superior. Sadly, all these years later when we reconnected I discovered that he has not grown past his arrogant, narcissist ways. He still needs to be intellectually superior, and when he feels threatened, he does what all great thinkers do, call people names. I told him he was behaving exactly like the President-Elect, which he was. He didn’t like that a bit and unfriended me. I now consider it a victory to have stirred that particular pot!

A bigot – that one got me. A bigot is “a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions” – this coming from a man who unfriended me because he didn’t like what I was saying on Facebook. Am I a bigot? We all have our blind spots so I’d have to say yes, I’m intolerant toward some who hold different opinions. Our president-elect would be one of them. Trust me, I am working on this. I long to find a place of acceptance that does not mean acquiescence. Right now, I can’t see the divine in this man just yet. In fact, I tend to think he’s evil incarnate and see it as my job to speak out against him.

COMPASSION FOR ALL WHO HAVE BEEN & WILL BE DISAPPOINTED

Beyond that, I have deep compassion for the people who elected him believing he would change their unhappy lives. I have less compassion for the meanness and hatred that a few carry and choose present to the world. I want to say, show me your misery, this I can understand. But anger, rage, hubris, entitlement? And yet, tolerance is tolerance. I’m working on it.

Here’s what I do know. The women before us modeled tolerance and acceptance as a virtue, and to some extent it is. They did not feel free, however, to rebel or speak up when perhaps they should have. We feel freer to do so, and yet the past that lives on in us often keeps us feeling guilty and wrong when we do.

Making nice is not always possible, nor is it human. We have a wide array of thoughts, feelings and reactions. it is to our detriment to keep them buried. They will erupt when we least expect them to and it won’t be pretty.

THERE IS A TIME & A SEASON

There’s a time to fight and a time to stand down. There’s a time to speak and a time to be silent. We must each in our own way and find a balance between speaking our truth and taking time for deep reflection. None of us are totally clear on what we are fighting for. Those who are, seem to be fighting one particular battle. Maybe that’s the best any of us can do.

We must continue to ask ourselves challenging questions:

What am I really angry about?

Are there unacknowledged feelings and thoughts beneath my anger? Are the thoughts I’m thinking true?

“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them” ~ Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

“If you have never been called a defiant, incorrigible, impossible woman. . .have faith. . . there is yet time.” ~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

I am sorry to say I cannot determine the artist of this image. I hope one day they come forward.

Religion is a hot button topic, especially with the election antics well under way. Even though it was decreed long ago that there should exist a separation of church and state, I do not believe that our beliefs can ever be removed from our choices and actions, overt or otherwise. We don’t have to talk about what we value, or acknowledge it even to ourselves. They show up in everything we do, with or without our permission.

In all arenas, an individual’s spoken beliefs are not what concern me. They can say what they will. It’s how they live, the energy they exude and stir in others, that influences my respect for them or lack thereof. This is true for all of us. I have lived with the destruction of my shadow self, and still do. I have fallen victim, again and again, to the shadow self of others. This is where the real damage occurs.

[tweetthis]”The un-examined life is not worth living.” Socrates[/tweetthis]

The beliefs and values that lurk in the shadows unannounced and uncontested turn the world upside down. We only need look at what’s happening in the Republican Party to see the damage the shadow self can do to peace and harmony. No. . . religion, organized religion, is not the problem here. It’s not the words spoken, it’s what isn’t said that does the most damage.

RELIGION & THE UNCHURCHED

The church has lost membership steadily over my lifetime. Even back in the late 1970’s when I assisted George Gallup, Jr. in the polling of America regarding their religious beliefs, the decline was obvious. As a recent seminary graduate, I was personally looking for a path outside of the church to continue my exploration of faith and religion in my own life. I was eager to ask the questions of others and learn what I could from their experiences.

Gallup’s polling turned up an obvious decline in church attendance across all major denominations and religions in this country. Every poll he conducted indicated that Americans felt as I did. Organized religion was not meeting their needs. And yet, here we are, decades later still clinging to a concept of religion that no longer seems relevant to our modern mindset.

We have a generation of “unchurched” individuals, my children among them, and a vocal minority who shouts at the top of their lungs in a desperate attempt to fan the flames of a dying mindset. The later does not concern me near as much as the former. I do not despair, however, because spirituality is not dead. It’s just in the process of transformation.

People have not lost interest in exploring the mysteries of life, or of the existence of a power greater than themselves. The exploration is simply being undertaken outside of the traditional framework. The growing numbers of individuals delving into these mysteries do not meet on Sunday mornings, or Friday evenings, or face the East in prayer each day, although some do. These people wrestle with, explore, discuss and struggle with the nature of existence and faith throughout their days wherever they are.

Caroline Myss, teacher, author, medical intuitive, refers to those that she knows as “mystics without a monastery”. They read voraciously. They seek mentors, guides, teachers and attend classes, seminars, lectures, workshops on personal and spiritual matters. They meditate, pray, reflect, and practice their faith with every breath they take. They are supported by their “tribe”. . . those individuals who understand their faith journey and are walking a similar path. Unlike mystics of old, the modern-day mystic is not cloistered away from the world. Instead, they struggle to walk between worlds, with one foot in the world and one outside.

These individuals, speak, write, and teach. They love, listen, and care. They tend to the suffering of their own hearts and souls and the suffering of the world. They attach to no particular dogma. They belong to no particular church or denomination. They follow the Spirit within and pray without ceasing. They pray for deeper understanding and the ability to live a congruent, whole and compassionate life. They worship no one, no thing. They stand open before the universe in communion with all that is.

Yes, religion is dead. The creative energy of something larger than ourselves is very much alive.

“The Truth is that circumstances do not determine the quality of your life; your choices do. Mystical Truth is the nuclear power of your soul. Personal truth is a stepping-stone, but it does not contain nuclear powered grace, so to speak. Why not go for the real thing when you know you have it in you?” Caroline Myss

The subject of “truth” comes up often in politically charged conversations. As candidates enter the race one by one, the pot is stirred, as are emotions. Blanket statements are made and often taken out of context. All rules of debate are thrown out of the window and it becomes acceptable to prove a point with opinion.

We each have our own take on what is true and what is not true, based on our own unique and very personal experience. Our perspective by nature is limited. When it comes to politics, we tend to support candidates whose positions we believe line up with our perceived “truth”, and are let down and sometimes enraged when all points are not congruent with one another. When it comes to politics there is no truth. There is no right or wrong. There’s only opinion. The truth will only be out after the election is over, the race is won and the winner has served his/her time in office. All that precedes it is conjecture, speculation and opinion.

Factual truth, evidentiary truth, is always limited by the very nature of the concrete world in which we live. Mystical truth steps outside of the concrete world and does not bother to take sides in political debates. It knows it is ludicrous to do so. The language spoken is not the same.

The quality of our life is not determined by an election.The quality of our life is based on the choices we make every minute, every day, every hour of our life. What we make manifest in the world today does make a difference. When we manifest political vitriol today we spread ill will and angry energy in the world. Our choices make us who we are. Our choice to be angry and venous today fills our life with anger and venom. It changes us. It does not bring about the positive change we envision.

I broke my own vow, made long ago, to only spread positive, uplifting and compassionate filled messages via social media. There is far too much of the other. I broke it when I became angry with Dell for how they are handling, or shall I say more accurately not handling, my computer’s repairs. I felt my anger at Dell begin to boil. I let off a little steam on Twitter. I justified it in my mind, “I want everyone to know to avoid Dell.” Truthfully I wanted to punish Dell for betraying a loyal customer. These feelings grew as I vented, reminding me of the injustices I experienced with Allstate Insurance, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC. The anger grew. I felt conflicted. Isn’t fighting for change important, I argued with myself? When all was said and done I felt drained and I realized I was participating in the much ado about nothing of personal opinion and perspective.

What do I want the quality of my life to be today? That was the more important question I kept asking myself. I do not want my days to be filled with fighting and anger. I’ve done too much of that in the past. I want to focus on things that really matter, like supporting people trying to find their voice, their truth, their lives; to offer hope to those in despair, encouragement to those who fear, and support to those who are alone or suffering.

One need not be angry, or stirred up to speak the truth and keep speaking the truth as one knows it. I resolved to keep speaking the truth as I saw it to Dell and while I waited to focus on the positive quality of my immediate life. I have no room for anger, condescension, combat, name calling. It serves no one. It does not serve the world and it does not serve truth.

Anger builds walls. We tear down walls when we go inside of ourselves and find the voice of truth. Then we hold on to it with everything we have while we go back out into the world and live it. When we can say, “This is what I feel, this is what I see, this is what I hear, what do you see, feel, hear and believe?” Then we can learn from one another, even if we do not agree or see things in the same way, as surely we will not. We can, however, allow them to have their perspective, their truth without relinquishing our own. Honor ourselves, honor and respect them and the real “truth” lies somewhere in between.

Fighting for what we perceive to be the truth need not be done with swords and angry words. Real truth will always cut like a knife through non-truth. On that we can depend.